Happy 2019 and Jingle Mingle Thanks

Written on Wednesday, January 9th, 2019 by Julie Halloran P'17,'20; DPN President
Filed under From the DPN

Happy new year from the Deerfield Parents’ Network! I hope you had a wonderful holiday break with your families.

Thank you to the many families who contributed to the 2018 Jingle Mingle Fund. The generous outpouring shows our appreciation and recognition for Deerfield’s faculty and staff. This year’s event was a resounding success with more than 450 attendees gathering at the festive December 14th celebration. Our DPN gift funded raffle baskets and party favors for the event. Thanks, too, for the parents who helped on our impromptu wrapping committee in December: Stephani Clough, Pita De La Vega, Laura Mikesell, Carson Seeligson and Robin Stoll.

Looking ahead, if you’ll be on campus during the winter, you’ll want to drop by the new athletic center which has become a vibrant hub of student activity. As a hockey mom, I am impressed by the school spirit and energy (and the sheer size of the crowds!) at recent games. I have loved the wandering through the facility and into the Greer and seeing so many students using the space for a wide range of physical activities plus meeting, socializing and even some studying.

For the DPN, our annual meeting will be the Saturday of spring family weekend and we also have a smaller winter meeting in mid-January. We continue to focus on supporting the community of current families and collaborating with the school administration on timely topics. This spring, our key initiatives include:

Final farewells to Dr. Curtis and beginning to plan for welcoming Dr. Austin this summer.

Spring events including the Class of 2019 senior party and spring family weekend (May 9-12th). The initial Eventbrite email for the 5/24 graduation party was sent to seniors’ parents last week. Contact Events VP Kelly Shuhda for more information and/or to get involved.

First Link matching process to welcome 2019-20 new students and families. Interested volunteers should contact the DPN First Link VPs Paula Pink, Sharmila Muratoti and Vanessa Lewis.

DPN nominations for the 2019-20 school year. Parents who are interested in getting involved in the DPN should contact the Nominations VPs, Serena Bowman and Jennifer Vogt or me, jthalloran@aol.com, to explore the steering committee and other ways to get involved.

As always, I encourage families to stay informed by exploring the website, reading The Bulletin online daily, as well as reading the student newspaper, The Scroll as well as the bi-weekly Families FYI .

Best wishes for a happy, healthy 2019 and I look forward to seeing you on campus soon!

About DPN

The Deerfield Parents Network (DPN) is an organization aimed at building partnerships among Deerfield parents, and between parents and the Academy. Schools like Deerfield no longer serve "in the place of parents," but rather "along side of parents." The goal of the Parents Network is to improve the Deerfield experience for all students and their families through several initiatives.